INDIVIDUALS SUSPECTED.

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flourishing circumstances, were reduced to beggary. From the inscription on the plinth of the lower pedestal of the Monument it appears that the Papists were the authors of this fire; the Parliament being of this persuasion, addressed the king to issue a proclamation, requiring all Popish Priests and Jesuits to depart the kingdom within a month; and appointed a committee, who received evidence of some Papists, who were seen throwing fire-balls into houses, and of others who had materials for it in their pockets. This sad disaster produced some kind of liberty to the Non-conformists.

A sudden and dreadful massacre of the Protestants was feared; and the suspicion confirmed by particular kinds of knives found after the fire in barrels.

Several evidences were given to the committee that men were seen in several parts of the city casting fire-balls into houses; some that were brought to the guard of soldiers, and to the Duke of York, but were never heard of afterwards. Some weeks after, Sir Robert Brooks, chairman of the committee, went to France, and as he was ferried over a river, was drowned, with a kinsman of his, and the business drowned with him.*

Oates, in his narrative, says: The dreadful fire in 1666 was principally managed by Strange, the provincial of the Jesuits, in which the society employed eighty or eighty-six men, and spent seven hundred fire-balls; and over all their vast expense, they were fourteen thousand pounds gainers by the plunder; among which was a box of jewels consisting of a thousand carats of diamonds. He farther learned, that the fire in Southwark, in 1676, was brought about by the like means; and though in that they were at the expense of a thousand pounds, they made shift to get two thousand clear into their own pockets.†

Mr. Echard was told by an eminent prelate, that Dr. Grant, a Papist, was strongly suspected, who having a share in the waterworks, contrived, as is believed, to stop up the pipes the night before the fire broke out, so that it was many hours before any water could be got after the usual manner.

Dr. Lloyd, afterward bishop of Worcester, told Dr. Burnet, that one Grant, a Papist, had sometime before applied himself to Lloyd, who had great interest with the Countess of Clarendon, (who had a large estate in the new river, which is brought from Ware to London) and said he could raise that estate considerably if she would make him a trustee for her. His schemes were probable, and he was made one of the board that governed that * Oldmison, i. 547. + Rapin, ii. 690.

matter; and by that he had a right to come as often as he pleased to view their works at Islington. He went thither the Saturday before the fire broke out, and called for the key of the place where the heads of the pipes were, and turned all the cocks, which were then open, and stopped the water, and went away, and carried the keys with him. When the fire broke out next morning, they opened the pipes in the streets to find water, but there was none. Some hours were lost in sending to Islington, where the doors were to be broke open, and the cocks turned; and it was long before the water got from Islington. Grant denied that he turned the cocks; but the officer of the works affirmed that he had, according to order, set them all a unning, and that no person had got the keys from him but Grant; who confessed he had carried away the keys, but did it without design.

When we consider, several depositions were made after the fire, of its breaking out in several different places at the same time, and that one man confessed his setting fire to the houses where it began, when he was executed for it: when we remember Bishop Lloyd's testimony concerning Grant, we cannot easily be convinced that it was entirely accidental.

Bishop Kennet gives the following account: There was but one man tried at the Old Bailey for being the incendiary, who was convicted by his own confession, and executed for it. His name was Roger Hubert, a French Huguenot † of Rohan, in Normandy. Some people shammed away this confession, and said he was non compos mentis; and had a mind, it seems, to assume the glory of being hanged for the greatest villain. Others say he was sober and penitent; and being, after conviction, carried through the ruins to shew where he put fire, he himself directed through the ashes and rubbish, and pointed at the spot where the first burning house stood.

The fire was generally charged on the Papists; one Hubert, a a Frenchman, who was seized in Essex as he was flying to France, confessed he had begun the conflagration. He was blindfolded, and purposely conducted to wrong places, where he told them it was not the spot where he began the flames; but when he was brought to the right, he confessed that was the place where he threw the fire-ball into the baker's house, the

* Robert, according to Rapin.

Bishop Burnet and some others say he was a Papist.

A SECOND FIRE DESIGNED.

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place where the fatal fire began, which he persisted in to the last moments of his execution. He was hanged upon no other evidence though his broken account made some believe him melancholy mad.*

:

But Oates several years afterwards informed the world the execrable deed was performed by a knot of eighty jesuits, friars, and priests, of several nations.†

After all examinations there was but one man tried for being the incendiary, who confessing the fact, was executed for it: this was Robert Hubert, a French Hugenot, of Rohan, in Normandy, a person falsely said to be a Papist, but really a sort of lunatic, who by mere accident was brought into England just before the breaking out of the fire, but not landed till two days after, as appeared by the evidence of Laurence Peterson, the master of the ship who had him on board.‡

It was soon after complained of, that Hubert was not sufficiently examined who set him to work, and who joined with him. And Mr. Hawles, in his remarks upon Fitzharris's trial is bold to say, that the Commons resolving to examine Hubert upon that matter next day, Hubert was hanged before the house sat, so could tell no farther tales.

Lord Russell and Sir Henry Capel observed to the House of Commons (1680) that those that were taken in carrying on that wicked act, were generally discharged without trial.

In 1679, the House of Commons were suddenly alarmed with an information of a fresh design of the Papists to burn London a second time. The house of one Bird, in Fetter-lane, being set on fire, his servant Elizabeth Oxly, was suspected of firing it wilfully, and sent to prison. She confessed the fact, and declared she had been employed to do it by one Stubbs, a Papist, who had promised her five pounds. Stubbs being taken up, confessed he persuaded her to do it, and that Father Giffard, his confessor, put him upon it; telling him it was no sin to burn all the houses of heretics. He added he had frequent conferences on this affair with Giffard and two Irishmen. Stubbs and the maid declared, the Papists were to make an insurrection, and expected an army of sixty thousand men from France. It was generally inferred from this incident, that it was not Giffard's fault (nor that of his party), that the city of London was not burnt, as in the year 1666; and confirmed those in their opinion who thought * Burnet, Abr., 120. + Howell, Impartial History of James II., i. 9 Echard, i. 169.

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that general conflagration was the contrivance and work of the Papists.

The hand of man was made use of in the beginning and carrying on of this fire. The beginning of the fire at such a time when there had been so much hot weather which had dried the houses, and made them the more fit for fuel; the beginning of it in such a place, where there were so many timber houses, and the shops filled with so much combustible matter; and the beginning of it just when the wind did blow so fiercely upon that corner toward the rest of the city, which then was like tinder to the sparks; this doth smell of a popish design, hatched in the same nest with the gunpowder plot. The world sufficiently knows how correspondent this is to popish principles and practices; they might, without any scruple of their kinds of conscience, burn an heretical city, as they count it, into ashes: for beside the dispensations they can have from his holiness (rather his wickedness) it is not unlikely but they count such an action as this meritorious.

Lord Chancellor (Earl of Nottingham) in his speech in giving judgment against Lord Viscount Stafford, said, "Who can doubt any longer that London was burnt by Papists ?" though there was not one word in the whole trial relating to it.

The inscription on the plinth of the lower pedestal of the Monument has given an opportunity to the Reverend Mr. Crookshanks to say, it appears that the Papists were the authors of the fire, and that the Parliament being of the same persuasion, addressed the king.

The inscription is in English :

"This pillar was set up in perpetual remembrance of the most dreadful burning of this protestant city, begun and carried on by the treachery and malice of the popish faction, in the beginning of September, in the year of our Lord 1666. In order to the carrying on their horrid plot for extirpating the protestant religion and old English liberty, and introducing popery and slavery."

This inscription was erased by King James upon his succession to the crown; but reinscribed presently after the revolution, in such deep characters as are not easily to be blotted out.

The latter part of the incription on the north side (Sed furor papisticus, qui tam dira patravit, nondum restinguitur) containing an offensive truth, was erased at King James's accession, and re-inscribed soon after the revolution.

*Old. Hist. of the Church of Scotland, i. 207.

COMBINATION OF NATURAL CAUSES.

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Mr. Pope differs much in his opinion concerning these inscriptions, when he says—

Where London's column, pointing at the skies,

Like a tall bully, rears its head, and lies.

It seems wonderful (says the author of the Craftsman) that the plague was not as peremptorily imputed to the Papists as the fire.

There was a general suspicion of incendiaries laying combustible stuff in many places, having observed several houses to be on fire at the same time: but we are told, God with his great bellows did blow upon it, and made it spread quickly, and horrible flakes of fire mounted to the skies.

There was a strange concurrence of several natural causes which occasioned the fire so vigorously to spread and in

crease.

:

There was a great supineness and negligence in the people of the house where it began: it began between one and two o'clock after midnight, when all were in a dead sleep on a Saturday night, when many of the eminent citizens, merchants, and others, were retired into the country, and left servants to look to their city houses it happened in the long vacation, at a time of year when many wealthy citizens are wont to be in the country at fairs, or getting in debts, and making up accounts with their chapmen.

The houses where it began were mostly built of timber, and those very old: the closeness and narrowness of the streets did much facilitate the progress of the fire, and prevented the bringing in engines. The wares and commodities stowed and vended in those parts were most combustible of any other, as oil, pitch, tar, cordage, hemp, flax, rosin, wax, butter, cheese, wine, brandy, sugar, and such like.

The warmth of the preceding season had so dried the timber, that it was never more apt to take fire; and an easterly wind (which is the driest of all) had blown for several days together before, and at that time verv strongly.

The unexpected failing of the water from the New River; the engine at London-bridge called the Thames water-tower was out of order, and in a few hours was itself burnt down, so that the pipes which conveyed the water from thence through the streets, were soon empty.

Beside, there was an unusual negligence at first, and a confidence of easily quenching it, and of its stopping at several places

* Seymour, i. 454.